The amount of orders coming in are starting to pick up. Besides mailer envelopes, which we use for shirts and other small items, our store is left with just two types of boxes (both are under 18 in. in any dimension, one of them is only 8 inches tall). We get a lot of orders for power tools, small appliances and bulky items. It has been that way for months.
Usually our Q4 boxes would have already arrived by now but we still do not have them. Quite frankly, I don't know if we will ever get them.
Several weeks ago there was a survey asking how much stores had on hand for SFS supplies. Well before that survey came out we constantly reminded the store manager about not having enough boxes of the right kind (and still do). The reply is always "it's not in the budget".
So, now we have been foraging for boxes to fulfill these orders, or shipping items in the box they came in, both of which we are "not" supposed to do. We have to save any larger box that comes through on truck days, but those are far and few between and get used as quickly as they come in. Any time a large box comes in, we take it. Boxes for toilet paper, janitorial supplies, boxes of products taken out for floor displays. Once we were left with no choice but to go to different stores around the mall to ask for boxes. How embarassing.
An order for several tools came through today. One of the items, a torque wrench, would not fit into any of the boxes we had on hand. So, we spent half an hour going through the store and all of its storerooms and the little hidden "junk rooms" to find a box for this one order. We finally found a large, dusty box in a storage room full of old binders and folders. It was worse for the wear, much larger than needed and was kind of embarrassing to send out an order in a worn out box in an overkill size, but that's the kind of thing we have to do since no one is motivated to supply our store with boxes to use.
It's going to be really crappy having to send out potential gifts in their own boxes, too. But if an order for something large comes through and there are no boxes to "conceal" it, we have no choice.